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Although the health community mostly defends the glass of milk as an example and good practice of a healthy diet and nutritional quality (for example with campaigns such as Get the Glass), the milk and dairy is a food group harshly punished by the new nutritional trends. The lactose intolerance of a good part of human beings has contributed to reinforce this black legend. Or books like "Your life in your hands", written by geochemistry teacher Jane Plant, have fanned the flames against them, as the author thinks she was cured of breast cancer by stopping drinking milk and dairy products.

Also the latest trends in the so-called paleolithic diets, especially those more in line with Loren Cordain's guidelines, restrict them significantly, since according to these approaches did not appear in the diet of our ancestors. This argument is usually reinforced by the possible presence of antibiotics or hormones that industry uses on livestock (something that can really be a problem) and by the supposed nutritional degradation that occurs during pasteurization. Specifically, this process in which the product is heated to high temperatures for a very short time in order to eliminate microorganisms, is one of the most criticized, being blamed for a good number of drawbacks that, according to some, surpass its more than interesting sterilizing efficiency.

As you can imagine, for a server the argument "we are the only animal that continues to drink adult milk" is not enough. We are the only animal that does many things, without having to be bad or negative because of it. Although some of the advocates of these anti-dairy theories propose different mechanisms and studies to justify them, the most direct way we have to check if all these fears really make any sense is through epidemiological studies. If dairy products cause breast cancer, we will find a higher prevalence of this disease among women who consume it in greater quantity. Or if its intake affects the cells of our pancreas, the increased incidence of diabetes will also be evident.

Fortunately, extensive reviews and meta-analyses have recently been published on the subject, so we won't have to go study by study because many experts have done so before:

- The publication of "Unpasteurized Milk: A Continued Public Health Threat" (2009) also highlighted the large number of risks involved in consuming unpasteurized milk and the lack of scientific evidence regarding the accusations of nutrient loss after this process. The following table included described in detail how little various nutrients were affected.

- In 2015 the meta-analysis "Dairy products consumption and metabolic syndrome in adults: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies" concluded that higher dairy consumption was associated with lower risk of metabolic syndrome.

- The review A systematic review and meta-analysis of elevated blood pressure and consumption of dairy foods" (2012) concluded that higher consumption of skimmed dairy products is associated with lower blood pressure and that whole dairy products have no association with this pathology.

It seems to me that the evidence is strong. If you do not have any kind of intolerance, dairy and milk do not seem to be bad at all, quite the contrary, your usual consumption has a lot of benefits and the most reasonable decision is to take them after pasteurization. The hypotheses and theories against them may be interesting or sound good, but for the moment the epidemiology contradicts them categorically.

However, drink milk, cheese and yogurt as naturally as possible and avoid added sugars and high processing, which result in products more similar to soft drinks or sweets than real food. A drinkable one of those given to children at snack time is much less recommended than a normal glass of milk. And even a glass of water.